Director Claude Lanzmann spent 11 years on this sprawling documentary about the Holocaust, conducting his own interviews and refusing to use a single frame of archival footage. Dividing Holocaust witnesses into three categories – survivors, bystanders, and perpetrators – Lanzmann presents testimonies from survivors of the Chelmno concentration camp, an Auschwitz escapee, and witnesses of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, as well as a chilling report of gas chambers from an SS officer at Treblinka.

Expansive in its beauty as well as its mind-numbing horror, Shoah is a towering -- and utterly singular -- achievement in cinema.

'Shoah' stands as one of the most powerful and essential documentaries ever made, praised for its monumental scope, profound emotional weight, and enduring legacy as vital historical testimony. The nine-and-a-half-hour film is celebrated for its thought-provoking examination of complicity and its unflinching dark tone. However, some find the demanding length challenging to endure, note limitations in historical scope regarding non-Jewish victims, and occasionally question the director's interviewing approach. Despite these concerns, most consider it transformative, essential viewing.